"Are the Authors of the Dungeon & Dragons Hardcover Adventures Blind to the Plight of DMs?"
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
For my part, I think I'll eventually find that buying Princes of the Apocalypse was money well spent. That's because I'm not looking at it as an all-in adventure path but instead as about 15 separate modules of widely-varying level that I can drop in anywhere I need one. And I say 'eventually' because while thus far I've only used one of the 15, there's little doubt that someday I'll use more of them. 
Satyrn
First Post
For my part, I think I'll eventually find that buying Princes of the Apocalypse was money well spent. That's because I'm not looking at it as an all-in adventure path but instead as about 15 separate modules of widely-varying level that I can drop in anywhere I need one. And I say 'eventually' because while thus far I've only used one of the 15, there's little doubt that someday I'll use more of them.
That's pretty much why I bought Out of the Abyss. I wanted it for the Underdark locations.
Quickleaf
Legend
When it comes to D&D's hardcover adventures, I think I'd actually like them to be longer in terms of page count. I'm noticing lots of details that feel like they're missing from ToA in order to hit a 256 page count target, but would have made prepping & running the adventure easier.
While I understand that an adventure sells less than a PHB or DMG, and cartography costs are higher, the PHB and DMG are $50 for 320 pages and ToA is $50 for 256 pages. So another 16-32 pages to ToA would have still kept it shorter than the PHB or DMG, but would have allowed for some of these improvements...
With the exception of an index, these are all things I'm tackling in my own DM prep. Minus the Chultengar section (which is big because I'm adding to the story in my home game), that's about 12 pages of "supplementary" material I need to run the adventure smoothly.
While I understand that an adventure sells less than a PHB or DMG, and cartography costs are higher, the PHB and DMG are $50 for 320 pages and ToA is $50 for 256 pages. So another 16-32 pages to ToA would have still kept it shorter than the PHB or DMG, but would have allowed for some of these improvements...
- An index
- A more useful table of contents (esp. for Chapter 2)
- More backstory summarized at the beginning for the DM's convenience (e.g. minotaurs in Omu - what's up with that?)
- Details on the culture of Chult, and maybe a glossary of some Chultan words
- Short-form stats for guides (esp. ones different from base monster)
- Alternative forms of the Death Curse to reconcile intense time pressure & an exploration-heavy game
- At least some guideline for milestone based level advancement
- Description of the "Prince of Beggars" / beggar princes & the ziggurats of Port Nyanzaru's Old City
- Guidelines for ocean travel & encounters around Chult – a PC may have the sailor background or the PCs may get a boat in a side quest
- Clues hinting at Omuan engineering & Acererak's magical wards that went into the Tomb – these seem to be poorly foreshadowed, if at all, making lots of work for the DM
- Write-up on some of the islands; for example, Ed Greenwood had an entire description of the Dawn Warrior just waiting when asked on Sage Advice
- Dungeon roster for the Tomb, like was done for Fane of the Night Serpent
- Fleshing out Omu, especially the Palace which is so large that it gets its own column on the Omu Random Encounters chart, yet barely gets 1/2 a page.
- Some effort to detail the eastern jungles of Chult known as the Chultengar, and a reason to go there
With the exception of an index, these are all things I'm tackling in my own DM prep. Minus the Chultengar section (which is big because I'm adding to the story in my home game), that's about 12 pages of "supplementary" material I need to run the adventure smoothly.
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Hussar
Legend
Since when are 3e modules "old school"?
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I'll third the call for INDEXES in RPG products. It's unbelievable how mind buggeringly bad WotC indexes are for their books. There is no excuse for that.
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
Since when are 3e modules "old school"?
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I'll third the call for INDEXES in RPG products. It's unbelievable how mind buggeringly bad WotC indexes are for their books. There is no excuse for that.
Well, if you were born in the month 3.5 was released, you would be 15 in a little over two months and you'd be about 18 when 3.0 was released. I'm sure the new teenage DMs see three editions past, 18-year-old modules (Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury) as "old school."
MichaelSomething
Legend
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Not without the guarantee that the adventures would be good, fit into my campaign, be to my taste, and be to my players taste.
Nothing beats being able to go into a shop and browse through the adventure before deciding whether to part with hard earned cash.
TheSword
Legend
The quality of the WoC 5e campaigns has been consistently really high in my opinion. That sadly just isn’t the case with 3pp. Though there are obvious gems, like way of the wicked (the new standard by which I set 3rd Party adventures)
As an aside, I would recommend any DM attempting to run a WoC 5e campaign to watch Chris Perkins on Dice Camera Action. They are entertaining and demonstrate one way of running. There is no substitute for seeing how the writer plays out the encounters. The caveat is that the party can sometimes be a bit random but Chris runs with it. I found it really enhanced Curse of Strahd as a DM. I even included some stuff in the stream that wasn’t in the books.
As an aside, I would recommend any DM attempting to run a WoC 5e campaign to watch Chris Perkins on Dice Camera Action. They are entertaining and demonstrate one way of running. There is no substitute for seeing how the writer plays out the encounters. The caveat is that the party can sometimes be a bit random but Chris runs with it. I found it really enhanced Curse of Strahd as a DM. I even included some stuff in the stream that wasn’t in the books.
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